1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a data generation apparatus configured to analyze print data and print the analyzed data or generate data based on a result of the analysis on the data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In generating page information including a plurality of objects that overlap one another, a conventional information processing apparatus or a conventional image forming apparatus performs drawing processing according to a drawing order of the plurality of objects. In this case, an object whose drawing order is earlier is overwritten with an object whose drawing order is later. Accordingly, the object information overwritten by the information processing apparatus or the image forming apparatus may not be visualized.
In particular, in the case of printing application data generated using an animation function of PowerPoint® of Microsoft Corporation, the application data is printed in a state where an object set in the animation overlaps another object. Accordingly, the information about the object to be overwritten with the object set in the animation may not be printed.
In order to solve this problem, a conventional method describes animation information in a page description language (PDL) for each object, as well as describing a drawing order and an attribute therein.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-243894 discusses a method for printing both an intermediate page, in which the object is not yet overwritten with an animation object, and a final page, in which the object has already been overwritten with an animation object.
However, the conventional method has the following disadvantages.
That is, in order to solve the above-described problems, it is necessary to acquire animation information from each application and reflect the acquired animation information in a PDL. Furthermore, in this regard, it is necessary to output and add, to each object, information indicating that the object is set in an animation object, for example, to each application as associated information for each object.
Furthermore, it is necessary to reflect the information in a PDL for each object within a driver per each type of PDL to be used. That is, it is necessary that each document generation application and a plurality of drivers comply with the method.
Furthermore, in the case of printing an output from each application after converting the output into a portable document format (PDF), animation information may be lost at the time of converting the output into a PDF. In this case, animation information cannot be acquired from the PDF. Accordingly, this conventional method cannot solve the above-described problems.
Furthermore, the conventional method performs processing on an object regardless of content of the object that has been overwritten with an animation object and thus is not visualized. Accordingly, the conventional method may print page information that is not desired by a user to be visualized.